Jesse Ventura lawsuit will be tried in Minnesota, judge rules

Chris Kyle, left, former Navy SEAL and author of the book "American Sniper"; and former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura. (AP Photo/File)

Former Gov. Jesse Ventura's defamation suit will be tried in Minnesota and not Texas, but from here on out, he'll just be plain ol' Jesse Ventura and not "Gov. Jesse Ventura," a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Richard Kyle said the widow Ventura is suing hadn't met her burden of proving why justice would best be served by moving the May trial to Dallas, near her home.

Ventura claims Taya Kyle's late husband, former Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle (they are no relation to the judge) defamed him in his 2012 best-seller, "American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History."

Taya Kyle wanted the trial moved to Texas, saying it would be more convenient for her -- and wouldn't inconvenience Ventura because he spends five months a year in Mexico.

In turning down Taya Kyle's request, Judge Kyle also said he'd had it with court documents and lawyers referring to Ventura as "governor." The one-term governor has been out of office for a decade.

"I don't see any reason why he shouldn't just be referred to as 'Jesse Ventura,' " the judge told the lawyers.

Ventura's lawyer, David Bradley Olsen, said use of the honorific "governor" had been Ventura's choice when he filed the suit as "Governor Jesse Ventura, a/k/a James G. Janos." Janos is Ventura's real name.

Kyle said that from here on, the "governor" part would be omitted in court.

Kyle also said he was tired of the acerbity lawyers for both sides had injected into their filings.

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"A lot of sniping back and forth," the judge said. "You may not see it, but I do."

Taya Kyle's motion to transfer the case to Texas and Ventura's reply -- and the reply to the reply -- were rife with cutting remarks. In one filing, Taya Kyle's lawyers said Ventura's decision to pursue the case after Chris Kyle's death in February was worse than anything Kyle may have written about Ventura.

Olsen complained in one filing that the defense lawyers were "obviously writing more for the media than for this Court" and that they had "again littered their brief with unnecessarily vitriolic comments and personal attacks against Governor Ventura. ..."

Neither Ventura nor Taya Kyle were at Tuesday's 55-minute hearing in federal court in St. Paul. And as the judge pointed out to the woman's lawyers, she's not even required to show up for the trial.

Ventura, the former professional wrestler, governor and member of a Navy special-forces unit, sued Kyle over an excerpt in his memoir in which he says he punched a man in a California bar in 2006 for badmouthing the SEALs.

The book identifies the victim only as "Scruff Face," but in subsequent interviews, Kyle acknowledged it was Ventura.

Ventura said the incident never happened. He sued Kyle for defamation, unjust enrichment and misappropriation of Ventura's name and likeness.

In February, Kyle and a friend were shot to death at a gun range. A former Marine with post-traumatic stress disorder is awaiting trial on charges of capital murder.

Ventura continued the suit, substituting the widow as the defendant because she is executor of the estate.

She wanted the trial moved to the Northern District of Texas, which convenes in Dallas, 25 miles from where she lives with her 8-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter.

One of her lawyers, Leita Walker, told the judge that Ventura could get a fair trial anywhere but that it would be a burden on Taya Kyle to have to spend two or three weeks at trial in Minnesota.

Walker called a trial "one more painful ordeal" for the woman and said Ventura had no right to make it "unnecessarily painful."

The lawyer played a video snippet from Taya Kyle's September deposition. In it, she talked about how she'd left her children with her grandparents for three days while she was on a business trip and that when she returned, the kids "were upset; they were complaining."

In a declaration she filed in August, Taya Kyle said that while she's traveled to earn money -- among other things, she is promoting her husband's posthumously published book, "American Gun: A History of the U.S. in Ten Firearms" -- she tries to limit her time away.

But in a legal memo earlier this month, Olsen noted that Kyle "has been voluntarily traveling across the country on media and speaking tours" for the past three months. Among her trips: a five-state "Patriot Tour," a speech to the National Rifle Association convention in Houston and appearances on Fox News.

Olsen told the judge the widow's request to move the trial was little more than an "appeal to sympathy, compassion and prejudice."

Also, he said, Taya Kyle has said in national television interviews that Ventura was suing her to take her money, leaving out the fact that the publisher's insurer would cover most of any damages a jury might award.

Judge Kyle said that in bringing the motion to transfer the case, Taya Kyle carried the burden of proving it was in the interests of justice to move the trial to Texas. She hadn't done that, he said.

The case would be expensive to move, he said, and witnesses would be no more accessible in Texas than they would be in Minnesota. Also, he said, Ventura is a resident of Minnesota "and chose this forum for his action."